Mobile communication systems, such as cellular telephone systems and the like, continue to improve and expand to meet user's demands. Mobile communication systems were originally created for transmitting only voice or speech signals, but these systems have been improved over the years to be capable of communicating not only voice information but data information as well. Data in this respect refers particularly to the information transferred during certain services such as text messaging, Internet access, etc.
While mobile service providers have made improvements in mobile communication systems to increase data transfer rates and keep costs low, a need for increased monitoring of these systems has also increased. Monitoring mobile communication systems provides test results that may be used for analyzing the performance or integrity of the mobile system. Furthermore, these test results may be used for troubleshooting when problems arise. However, extracting and framing these communication signals for the purpose of analysis or troubleshooting is not a simple task. In the context of this disclosure, “framing” refers to detecting a group of bits within a frame, generally known as a framing pattern, to create a frame that contains address information, control bits, valid voice and/or data information, frame checking bits, etc.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a conventional base station system (BSS) 10. The BSS 10 may be part of a mobile communication system or the like. The BSS 10 includes a base station controller (BSC) 12 and a number of base transceiver stations (BTSs) 14. Each of the BTSs 14 includes an antenna 16 or a group or array of antennas configured to transmit signals to and receive signals from many mobile devices, e.g. cellular telephones (not shown). The BTSs 14 communicate with the BSC 12 along communication paths, or transmission lines 18. The transmission lines 18 may be made up of optical waveguides, such as fiber optic cable, and/or electrical lines and may include other elements for transmitting or transferring signals.
The BSC 12 typically includes hardware and software for processing and controlling voice and data traffic in the BSS 10. In earlier systems, the BSC 12 controlled only voice traffic, which typically is transferred at a transfer rate of 16 kilobits per second (16 kbps). When mobile communication systems were improved to be able to handle data transmission, the systems could originally transfer data at the same 16 kbps rate. However, since this was considered to be too slow for many customers, further improvements to these systems were made to increase data transfer rates, allowing rates of up to, but not limited to, five times the 16 kbps rate on multiple channels. Allocating up to five channels for data transfer, the BSS 10 can transfer data up to 80 kbps and greater if needed.
Other improvements to mobile communication systems include the compression of voice information when signal quality is high. For example, if a voice call can be characterized as a high quality call with low noise or distortion, the 16 kbps bandwidth allocated to this call can be split into two 8 kbps channels, allowing two such calls to occupy one channel. As a result, the technique of splitting channels can be performed in order to reduce overall costs.
Mobile communication systems that offer the above-mentioned services to mobile customers further provide monitoring devices that routinely monitor the mobile communication systems to ensure that the quality of the available services is maintained. Monitoring can also be done to troubleshoot the systems when problems or errors are detected. Normally, a technician would be required to manually check the signaling channels of the system. The “signaling channel” in the present disclosure refers to a portion of code transmitted in the mobile communication system along with related channels. The signaling channel includes information about how the other related channels are configured in the system. However, as mentioned above, multiple channels can be bundled to up to five times the normal 16 kbps channels for data transfers and voice channels can be split into 8 kbps channels. As a result, the analysis of mobile communication systems can encounter many problems. Thus, a need exists in the industry to address the deficiencies and inadequacies to allow a monitoring system that can properly frame signals for analysis.